


Last Dance Before Supper (the Home Life Of Our Own Dear Queen Remix)

by Phoebe_Zeitgeist



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-06 05:36:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4209927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoebe_Zeitgeist/pseuds/Phoebe_Zeitgeist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ciel Phantomhive expected wedded bliss to be challenging from time to time.  He wasn't expecting the challenges to be quite like these.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Dance Before Supper (the Home Life Of Our Own Dear Queen Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [haldolhs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/haldolhs/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Mary Sue's Last Dance](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1754699) by [haldolhs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/haldolhs/pseuds/haldolhs). 



"I have told you already, Ciel," said the wife of my bosom, placidly pouring out the tea in the breakfast-room. "Lady Mary is my dear friend. My mind is quite made up, and it is useless to importune me any further." 

It likely was, at that. If the scene at Ellington's ball last night hadn't moved her [it was difficult to imagine what would. The business in the gazebo came back to me now in horrifying detail: Sebastian with his eyes burning violet and crimson, bright as gaslights in the darkness; Sutcliffe and Knox waving their peculiar mechanical weapons about to no purpose, just as if the racket couldn't be heard halfway across London, oblivious to Spears' futile orders to shut them down; Elizabeth with swords in both hands, not so much fighting as impatiently warding off careless swings of three death scythes. And all the while Lady Mary -- six feet and sixteen stone of her, wrapped in dozens of yards of ultramarine violet and silver lace that my darling had no doubt decided was cute -- lounged on the ground where Sebastian had tripped her and smirked, damn her eyes. And all the while every moment raised the risk of discovery by the Duke's guests, general panic, and a scandal certain to reach the Queen's ears. 

Oh, yes, there was more than one reason I hated balls. Ellington's wasn't even the worst I'd attended since my marriage, if you can believe it.

Still, I had to try. "Yes, but look here, my darling," I told her. "Your dear friend was not only spying on us, but had every intention of attempting to blackmail us." Any such attempt would have been futile, of course, but Lady Mary couldn't have known that. "She hasn't treated you as a friend, now has she?"

Lizzie gave me a piteous sigh. "Because we left her no choice! She was my friend, and I did nothing to help her, none of us did, what else could she have thought?" 

It was a fair enough point. As Lizzie was tactful enough not to point out, I'd have done the same or worse in her place. Lady Mary Doyle was harmless enough — true, she'd seen things last night that she shouldn't have, but our current arrangements were such that she could do us no harm if she did try to raise a scandal, and in any case I didn't think she'd be fool enough to attempt it. And as a houseguest, she'd been more an asset than a nuisance so far: she'd come to us without a stitch of useable clothing, and creating a wardrobe for her had kept Lizzie in harmless raptures for days now, and furnished work for the army of maids and seamstresses that Lizzie had hired since our wedding. It kept Nina Hopkins away from me, besides. It would be irritating if Lady Mary began to moon over Sebastian again, but in that case the problem would mostly be Sebastian's; and anyway he was used to it.

But for some reason Spears was afraid of her — so afraid that he was ready to collude with Sebastian over the fate of her soul — and I knew Sebastian found her soul tempting, if not her mind or her body. The shinigami would owe us a favor if we took her, which was valuable in itself; and it would be convenient for us not to have any quarrel — with Heaven, Hell, or either's intermediaries — over who owned Sebastian's dinner. Eating her would be tidy and efficient. Moreover, it was difficult for me to believe that Lizzie, tender-hearted and sentimental though she might sometimes be, had any genuine attachment to a woman she hadn't given a thought to since they were eight-year-olds shuffled off into the care of the same nursemaids at the occasional house party.

"Be reasonable, dearest," I said. "We talked about this before we put it into our marriage settlement. You don't want me to be hungry, and it's downright dangerous for Sebastian." I might have reminded her that the principal dangers of Sebastian going hungry were not to Sebastian's own well-being, but it wasn't necessary. Lizzie's never been a fool, for all that she likes to play at being bubble-headed.

The thought reminded me that I was hungry myself. "Bloody hell, Sebastian," I said, into the empty air. There was a time when I'd have rung the bell for him, but one advantage of our current arrangements was not having to keep up appearances in private. "Where the devil is my tea?" Lizzie sighed, poured a second cup of her own perfectly-brewed tea, and pushed the cup in my direction. 's was on the table, of course, perfectly brewed as always. She flinched just a little, and pushed a cup in my direction. I tried not to snap at her. "Thank you, Elizabeth, but you know I can't drink that."

"You always loved Sebastian's Earl Grey," she said reproachfully. "I'm sure it would do you good, if only you would try it."

I wasn't. The stuff smelled like ash and decay to me, closer to poison than to sustenance. Since the affair with Hannah Annafellows I'd developed some belated sympathy with Sebastian's struggles in the kitchen in the early days of our contract. Most human food smelled revolting and tasted worse. It was a wonder to me now that he'd learned to cook at all, let alone made the Phantomhive table a legend among the nobility of England. 

I couldn't tell Lizzie that, though; it would only distress her. Happily, I was spared any need to answer by Sebastian's appearance at my side, coalescing out of shadows that hadn't been in the sundrenched room an instant ago. "My most profound apologies, my lord," he said. "I'm afraid it has been a rather difficult morning. Please allow me." He produced a second teapot from the air and poured: a liquid like a glimmer in the air, that twisted as it fell as though it ran over an invisible rockfall. 

Lizzie frowned and looked away. I knew it distressed her: she'd told me once that she could neither see nor sense the tea Sebastian made for me, so that to her it appeared a mummery, a hapless pretending at true life: an empty pot and an empty cup, and a husband acting out a scene of madness. But the fragrance filled my senses, rich and bright and strange; and my hunger faded, even before I raised the teacup to my lips. "Moons of Saturn, my lord," Sebastian murmured. "Enceladus, principally, though I have blended those essences with others: Dione, for the most part, with topnotes of Mymas and Tethys. I hope it meets with your approval?"

In fairness, it was much too good for me to play our old game over it. I did it anyway. "It will do," I told him. "Now, what about these difficulties?"

"It can't be Bard blowing up the kitchen again," Lizzie added. "We'd have heard it."

Sebastian smiled. "Shinigami, my lady," he said, raising his left hand and ticking the point off on one finger. "Specifically, Mr. Sutcliffe. He, Mr. Knox, and Mr. Spears have organized themselves into rotating shifts, and Grell Sutcliffe came on duty as Lady Mary's observer at sunrise this morning. Unlike Mr. Spears and Mr. Knox, he is apparently incapable of doing the job discreetly. There was a small altercation this morning, in which I was forced to intervene. Lady Mary was dressing for riding, and I believe Mr. Sutcliffe coveted her new habit."

Lizzie gave a little shocked-sounding gasp and covered her mouth with her hand. Her eyes were very wide. I suspected she was trying not to laugh.

"The Chelmsmodshire Hunt," Sebastian continued, ticking off a second finger. "It appears that your ladyship's mother suggested that the Phantomhive manor would host the hunt breakfast today. Unfortunately, while she did think to inform us well in advance of the occasion, she did not think to send word by any of the Midford staff, or to insist upon speaking to Tanaka herself. It appears likely that she spoke to either Meirin or Finny and entrusted whichever it was with a message. Most happily for us, two of the grooms came by early to have a look at the grounds, and Wordsworth reported their conversation to Snake. Barring further disruption, our reputation for hospitality will suffer no disgrace."

"Fine," I said. "We'll be ready to receive them at half past eleven. And?" There was something more, I could see it in Sebastian's not-quite-smile. 

He swept me a bow in acknowledgement, and his lips curled into a true smile as he straightened. "And we have received an express from Sir Harold Doyle, my lord. Shortly, I expect, to be followed by a visit from the gentleman himself." He made a small gesture, and a salver bearing a single envelope appeared in his hand. "He writes, as I expect you will find, my lord, to inform you that Lady Mary his wife is absent from his house without his leave, that he has no knowledge of any invitation, and that he must therefore ask that you send her home at once, or else invite him here to join her as is proper."

Elizabeth clapped her hands, beaming. "There!" she cried. "I knew there would be a solution. Ciel, you and Sebastian will eat Lady Mary's odious husband, and all will be well."

The corners of Sebastian's mouth tightened, just a little. "How very kind of you, my lady," he said. There was no hint of mockery in his voice: there never was when he spoke to Elizabeth, and I wondered from time to time whether she noticed that he did not laugh at her as he did at me, and if so, whether she understood it well enough feel the lack. "But I am afraid —"

"It would cause considerable difficulties for Lady Mary," I said, cutting him off before he could invent another excuse. I knew the true reason for his displeasure, and I trusted he knew better than to try to explain it to Lizzie, but there was no guarantee that whatever he chose to tell her in its place wouldn't create every bit as much trouble. "You'd best speak to her, my dear, before authorizing us —" 

There was a scratch at the window. "To dispose of Sir Harold," I concluded, as the French doors onto the terrace swung open and Lady Mary swanned into the breakfast room. 

You may think "swanned" is rather an exaggeration. I assure you it wasn't. The ugly duckling of a few nights ago had mysteriously dropped some six stone, and what remained of the abundance was extravagantly feminine, above and below her trim waist. Her hair had undergone a change of color from muddy brown to chestnut. Hopkins had turned her out for riding in the style my wife was calling "a l'Amazon," and the effect was striking: I was glad we were in the country, because she'd have caused riots in Hyde Park. 

Only her cold grey eyes were unchanged. "Oh! Oh dear," she said. "My Sir Harold?" The shocked innocence in her voice was admirably feigned, even though she rather undermined the performance by turning immediately to the sideboard and beginning to pile ham and scones onto her plate. 

"I'm afraid so," Lizzie told her. "I thought it would be better if we took care of it for you, but Ciel says you might not like it?"

"You can't," Lady Mary said flatly. "I mean, you mustn't. I would like it, I would like it very much indeed, but . . . " She came to the table and began to sit, only to spring up again half way down. "Wait, he's coming here?" For the first time she sounded genuinely frightened. "How soon? He can't see me like this, and I've got rid of all the padding, it was carted out this morning. I'll have to hide. You won't let him see me? No matter how he insists?"

It clicked unpleasantly into place. "You may count on us, madam," I told her, and was rewarded by a grateful beam from Lizzie. "I would be astonished at your forbearance, were it not for the circumstances. As it is, I can only admire your self-command." Something shifted in her face, and I knew my guess had been right. "I'd have killed him anyway, I think," I added. I might have said more, but there was another knock at the terrace door, and Ronald Knox stood on the threshold, looking very like a puppy hoping for table scraps and someone ready to toss it a stick. The shift had evidently changed.

It was a relief in its way. I don't like having shinigami about — they've tried to kill Sebastian too many times for my comfort, and I'm not fond of the way they look at me these days either — but if I must, I'd rather it be Knox, a cheerful soul looking only to do his job with a minimum of fuss and to have a little fun around the edges, than Sutcliffe, who's frankly a maniac, or Spears, who seems to be some sort of fanatic. So when Knox fixed beseeching eyes on Lizzie and said, "Dear Lady Phantomhive, may I please come in?" I caught her eye and shrugged. 

She looked at Lady Mary, and apparently saw no objection. "Oh, do, Mr. Knox. The more the merrier, you know. Up to a point, at least." Her voice turned hard at the last words. 

"The point being the unspeakable Sir Harold Doyle, I take it?" Knox said cheerily. "That'll be an interesting Cinematic Record. Shouldn't want to have to look at it myself, but I suppose there'll be some that will. . . . I say, Lady P. Is that caviare?" He had wandered over to the sideboard, and was lifting all the covers in turn. "How too utterly brilliant of you. Would you mind awfully if I —" I gestured at him, resigned, and watched the pile of blini, cream, and caviare rise on his plate. He arrived at the table with it all intact, too: maybe I shouldn't have been surprised at his sense of balance, considering what he could do with his absurdly awkward death scythe.

"I wish you joy of it," Lady Mary said, new ice in her voice. "Whenever you may have the chance to see it. As long as that is not in the next eight years."

"Why not?" Knox asked, around a mouthful of caviare and cream. "It's not like it needs time to ripen. Already overripe, if you ask me."

He was talking like a demon. It was probably an affectation, but it was also truer than he knew. "Nothing to do with aesthetics," I said. "I made some inquiries in the City. It's a purely human problem. Lady Mary's father made an amazing hash of her marriage settlement. Or his lawyers did."

She laughed then, and even I could smell the delicious bitterness in it. For an instant Sebastian's eyes flashed red, and his nostrils flared. "Oh, there was no mistake," she said. "No misdirection either. Didn't you know, Lord Phantomhive? My father was besotted with Harold Doyle."

"Harold Doyle?" Lizzie's voice rose to a high squeak of disbelief.

"You didn't know him five years ago," Lady Mary said. "A beauty, Harry Doyle was, and a devotee of all the arts of pleasure, so the rumor was. He ran with Alistair Chambers' set, and you know what they were like. Me . . . I was just a respectable way to transfer the property. Harold's run through it all now, of course, but you knew that." She turned to Lizzie, and her voice softened. "All I have left is what should have come to me from my mother, and even that is contingent on Harry reaching the age of 50 in sound health."

"And is there no recourse at law? The Married Women's Property Act -- "

"Says that my father could have left me a competence. It doesn't say that he had to. He didn't want to, and now he's dead." She didn't look at me, and I was impressed once again; she must have known it was the Queen's Watchdog who had killed him.

Lizzie was drumming her fingertips on the table now. "But there must be something we can do. We are cousins, after all, and I'm sure Ciel would act for you."

"I would, but Lady Mary is right," I said, reaching out my hand to her. "I've seen the documents. If Doyle won't cooperate there's no simple way out."

Lady Mary nodded. "Please believe me, Lizzie, I've devoted hard years to trying to find some way to break the settlement. There's only one. Harry could join with the other trustees to dissolve the trust now. And he'll never do it. If he did, the principal would come to in my own right, and what fun would that be for Harry Doyle? Besides, he can't afford it. He's run through everything else he had." She looked up, her fingers tightening on the fork and knife in her hands, and I was reminded once more that in the right hands our silver was a deadly weapon. "Eight more years. My father wanted Harry to have the money, but he was not entirely a fool. He never trusted Harry's affections, you see. He knew that when he'd taken everything he'd be gone."

I could see all too well where this was going. Sympathy or no for Lady Mary, eight years was a long time to offer hospitality to a distant relative of my wife's, now turned permanent guest. She would need protection, too; her husband would likely try to assert his rights at law; and while her situation might be better with us than with her husband, that wasn't to say that Lady Mary would be happy or content. One thing was entirely clear from the way Lizzie was making sympathetic there-there noises across the table, though: whatever else happened, the deal with Spears was definitely off. Any hope I'd had of talking her round had vanished forever. 

I told Knox as much. He would make a convincing messenger, I thought: he'd be able to tell Spears that Elizabeth was inalterably against it from his own knowledge. I expected him to protest, if only because it meant giving Spears bad news, but he took it surprisingly cheerfully — well, he's a susceptible creature, and his admiration for Lady Mary's charms had become more obvious with every minute that passed in her company. For myself, I felt an unexpected stirring of relief. Lady Mary's soul was as mouthwatering as ever, the value of being able to take it without conflict was self-evident — and yet. It was difficult to believe that a deal proposed by William T. Spears would ever be to our benefit. And we had never learned precisely why it was that the Dispatch Society, or our local branch of it, was so unwontedly eager to have a particular soul go missing. I wouldn't have troubled to ask Spears, who would say something insulting and then refuse to answer further, and Sutcliffe wouldn't have known the answer, or cared enough to remember it if anyone told him. But Knox was a gossip; he might know. "I'm sorry we can't help you," I therefore told him. "It won't create any great difficulties for your office, I hope? Mr. Spears never did tell us why he needed it done."

Knox gave Lady Mary a sidelong glance. "I really shouldn't say," he said; but it was plainly a pro forma protest. He lowered his voice a little, but not so much that it wasn't pitched to carry across the table to her. "But the fact is, word is out that Higher Up wants her. As a recruit, that is. And Mr. Spears isn't happy with it, because he thinks she'd be too enthusiastic about the work and she makes him nervous." His eyes flickered to Lady Mary again, and she caught the look and gave him an odd smile: half grateful encouragement, mingled with unholy glee. "So then Senior Sutcliffe reminded him: no soul, no shinigami. It took Mr. Spears a little while to get used to the idea, but then he decided it was the only way to be sure."

Sebastian shook his head sorrowfully. "So, there is something that can move the incorruptible Mr. Spears from the strict path of duty. Who would ever have thought it? But, I had thought that your office does not recruit women for field work?"

"First time for everything," Knox said. "Hooray for progress, what?" He turned back to Lady Mary. "It'll have to wait, of course. Can't bring you on board until you die, you know, it's the rules. And we only take volunteers, so there's no hurrying things up by hiring someone to shoot you."

She was watching Knox intently now, with a new kind of smile: a real one, unstudied, the sort of smile that meant no good to someone. "Do I understand correctly," she said, biting off each word evenly, "that if I were to die by my own hand or instigation, I would become a god of death? As you are?"

"Exactly right," said Knox. "First class honors. What, d'you mean you want to?"

"Do you know," Lady Mary said, the smile blooming as she spoke, "I rather think I do. They do pay you, do they not? The devil take Harry." She turned back to me, then looked up at Sebastian. "Literally, perhaps?"

It wasn't like a promise of Lady Mary herself. Still, Harry Doyle's soul would be worth having. I would just need to persuade Sebastian not to turn up his nose at getting good old-fashioned roast beef when he'd been contemplating truffles and grand cru champagne. There was only one potential problem. "Your new colleagues are likely to have a problem with that," I told her. "We'd be taking his soul without a contract with him, and without any special arrangements with Dispatch. Mr. Spears in particular normally objects quite violently to that sort of thing."

Now she was absolutely grinning. I hoped we weren't in the process of creating another Grell Sutcliffe. "Nonsense, Lord Phantomhive," she said firmly. "You heard Mr. Knox. His 'higher-ups' want me. And I want my marriage annulled, which can be most effectively accomplished by having you and your butler eat Harold Doyle. When his soul is entirely gone from the universe, I shall be free of him. That's my price, and my bargain; and if Mr. Spears was willing to give me to you in order to stop me becoming a shinigami, I think his superiors will be willing to give Harry to you in order to have me."

Knox gave me a nod: he at least was convinced. "Sebastian?" I asked. 

"I cannot claim a comprehensive knowledge of the Dispatch Society's internal affairs, my lord," said he. "But I think we may safely rely on Lady Mary's ability to strike a bargain with them." 

"Then, it's settled?" I said.

"I'll stay to see it done," Lady Mary told us. "Lizzie, darling, you don't mind, do you? And for Nina to finish my clothes? Then, Mr. Knox, I shall be entirely at your service."

I turned back to Lizzie. After all, in the end it was her call to make. But she was already smiling broadly, and clapping her hands together in delight. "Of course!" she said. "You mustn't go running off before your new wardrobe is done. It's going to be adorable!" She bounced to her feet, then abruptly stopped. 

"I make one condition," she said, face and voice abruptly stern. "Now that we have found each other again, Mary, I will not have you vanishing again for another dozen years. I insist that you come to us for holidays, and visits as your duties allow. It will be autumn soon enough, and Ciel's birthday will come round, and Christmas, and we shall have the best parties, and it wouldn't be the same without you. Ciel agrees, I know. And so does Sebastian. Do you not, my love?"

I'd known it was coming. Marriage is a contract, in the end; I had only one answer, but perhaps that would have been true no matter what path our lives had taken. "Yes, my Lady," I said. "Of course."

**Author's Note:**

> First, my heartfelt thanks to haldolhs for inviting me to play in her sandbox, thereby braving all the possibilities for me to make a mess and get sand everywhere in pursuit of fun.
> 
> Second, a note on the OCs' names and titles. The Mary Sue of "Mary Sue's Last Dance" is a marquis' daughter, which if I understand the conventions correctly would make her Lady Mary, both before and after her marriage. Harold Doyle refers to himself as "a lowly lord," which is ambiguous enough to allow room for interpretation. Since wicked baronets are a tradition of English pulp fiction of a certain era, it seemed only right to place Sir Harry among their ranks.


End file.
